Telephone response systems, such as automated voice response units (VRUs) or others, raditionally rely on a human administrator to design the orderings of menus and information within the system. Thus, if the database and search logic are not properly installed, programmed or maintained, the familiar “Press 1 for billing inquiries, press 2 for order status . . . ” sequence may for instance require most callers to exhaust an entire list of options before reaching their desired selection. While techniques exist to make these systems easier to use by allowing voice rather than keypad entry of menu selections, there is no method to dynamically adjust the interface hierarchy based on caller usage.
As described in pending patents: Ser. No. 09/549,566 (entitled “Temporal Updates of Relevancy Rating of Retrieved Information in an Information Search System”); Ser. No. 09/549,669 (entitled “Implicit Rating of Retrieved Information in an Information Search System”); Ser. No. 09/549,568 (entitled “Usage Based Strength Between Related Information in an Information Retrieval System”); Ser. No. 09/751,934 (entitled “Automated Adaptive Classification System for Bayesian Knowledge Networks”); and provisional 60/314,796 (entitled “Method for Clustering Automation and Classification”), techniques exist where the information presented to users of a computer or Internet based question answering system changes dynamically, based on usage.
Such adaptive techniques have not however been incorporated into automated telephone systems, affecting the efficiency and user-friendliness of that type of support platform. Other problems exist.